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The AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines, purchased through the COVAX facility, arrive at Incheon International Airport on Thursday. (Yonhap News)

Korea’s disease control authorities are considering allowing fully vaccinated people – including those who received vaccinations made by Sinopharm and other pharmaceutical companies authorized for emergency use by the World Health Organization (WHO) – from being exempt from self-quarantine rules once they enter the country.

A former South Korean lawmaker has also claimed that people who receive AstraZeneca jabs will face discrimination – including not being able to enter Guam – because that vaccine has not yet been authorized for use in the US. Korean government officials have countered, however, that this claim is “not based on reality.”

Jeong Eun-kyeong, the commissioner of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), announced Monday that, in regard to the exemption of fully vaccinated people from self-quarantine rules, the KDCA is considering expanding the scope of acceptable vaccinations to those authorized for emergency use by the WHO because only allowing vaccines authorized in a particular country could “significantly limit the scope [of those who could be exempted].”

Here, a fully vaccinated person is anyone who has received the full series of shots for a particular vaccination and has completed a two-week waiting period to ensure antibodies have been produced at sufficient levels.

The vaccines that have thus far received emergency use authorization by the WHO include those made by Pfizer (US-Germany), Moderna (US), Janssen (US), AstraZeneca (UK), the Serum Institute of India, and Sinopharm (China). Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine is currently being considered for emergency use by the WHO, which means that the number of authorized vaccines could increase in the future.

There is currently no established international criteria for so-called “vaccine passports,” which would allow fully vaccinated people to be exempted from self-quarantine procedures upon entering a foreign country. The South Korean foreign ministry is currently conducting discussions with other countries to establish such criteria.

The US, for its part, has not yet created an official vaccine passport. The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) broadly allows people who have received vaccines authorized for emergency use in the US, along with those authorized for emergency use by the WHO, to be exempt from self-quarantine rules upon entering the country.

The criteria for being exempted from self-quarantine rules, however, differs from state to state and territory to territory. Guam, for example, only exempts people who have received the full series of Pfizer, Moderna and Janssen vaccinations from self-quarantining for ten days after entering the territory.

Park In-sook, a former lawmaker with the now-moribund United Future Party, said Sunday in a Facebook post that “Those who get Pfizer shots can go to Guam, but those who get AstraZeneca jabs cannot,” and that “There’s plenty of room for this kind of discrimination based on what kind of vaccine you get to happen in other areas and situations.”

In short, she suggested that Koreans who have gotten the AstraZeneca vaccine – which has made up half of Korea’s vaccination supply in the first part of this year – could face discrimination if they try to enter the US territory.

However, the South Korean government has countered that the US has “not prohibited entry” into its territory based on what kind of vaccine someone has received. The government has also announced that those who have completed the AstraZeneca vaccination series will likely be exempted from self-quarantine rules in the US following bilateral discussions.

Son Young-rae, the director of strategy and planning at the Central Disaster Management Headquarters, told reporters during a regular briefing the same day that “The AstraZeneca vaccine is the most widely available vaccine globally, and a large number of foreign leaders have gotten it. Consequently, I believe that [Park’s contention] is not based on reality.”

KDCA Commissioner Jeong, meanwhile, said that “there is still a need for negotiations and consultations to take place on how to certify vaccinations between countries” and that the government “will conduct a joint evaluation about this with the US and start discussions on procedures and methods we can both take to certify [vaccinations].”

With controversy swirling over her comments, Park issued a correction to her original post on Facebook that afternoon. “The sentence where I said that people who received AstraZeneca vaccinations can’t enter Guam resulted from trying to make the post’s title short,” she said in the post, adding, “The fact of the matter is that people [who received AstraZeneca vaccines] can enter the country, but they have to quarantine for two weeks.”

By Kim Ji-hoon, staff reporter

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